Collective self-esteem and burnout in professional school counselors.

The authors examined the relationship between collective self-esteem (i.e., the extent to which school counselors possess favorable perceptions of their professional or social group) and professional burnout in a sample of 533 school counselors. They also explored whether there were significant differences in professional burnout in school counselors by sex, geographic location of work setting, and number of years employed as a school counselor. Results indicated that higher collective self-esteem generally was associated with lower professional burnout. Moreover, the authors found that school counselors working in urban school environments reported significantly higher levels of burnout than did their peers working in other types of school environments. Furthermore, school counselors who had been employed in their roles for 20 years or longer reported higher levels of burnout than did their counterparts working fewer than 10 years. Implications of the findings are discussed.

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School counselors generally are employed in positions that entail working in a variety of professional roles with students and within school systems (Paisley & McMahon, 2001; Ribak-Rosenthal, 1994). In particular, school counselors assume a broad range of responsibilities, which include providing individual and group counseling, conducting psycho-educational outreach with a large student body, providing educational testing and academic advising, completing various administrative tasks, and engaging in clinical supervision to school counselor trainees, to name a few (Fitch, Newby, Ballestero, & Marshall, 2001; Kuranz, 2002; Perusse, Goodnough, & Noel, 2001b). Because of their myriad professional roles, accompanied by increased workloads and marked ambiguity in role responsibilities (Freeman & Coll, 1997; Kendrick, Chandler, & Hatcher, 1994), school counselors may be particularly susceptible to experiencing burnout. Burnout is characterized by emotional fatigue, disengagement, irritability, and apathy resulting from the work environment (Haddad, 1998). The promotion and maintenance of school counselors' well-being is paramount to their capacity to attentively and sensitively serve students and to avoid or mitigate against feelings of burnout. In this investigation, we examined the relationship between collective group orientation (known as collective self-esteem) and three dimensions of burnout in a large sample of professional school counselors.

Collective self-esteem refers to individuals' perceptions of themselves as members of a social (e.g., racial, ethnic, religious, community, or work) group, along with the value and emotional significance of membership in this group (Bettencourt & Dorr, 1997; Luhtanen & Crocker, 1992). Unlike personal identity, which concerns individual characteristics, collective identity relates to the characteristics of individuals' social groups and how they identify with those groups (Crocker, Luhtanen, Blaine, & Broadnax, 1994). Four components of collective self-esteem have been identified in the literature (Crocker & Luhtanen, 1990). Private collective self-esteem is the extent to which individuals feel positively about their social groups (i.e., the internal value that individuals ascribe to their given group). The degree to which individuals believe that others perceive their social group positively is referred to as public collective self-esteem. Membership collective self-esteem refers to the extent to which individuals believe they are good members of their social group, and the degree to which individuals view their group membership as an important part of how they perceive themselves is called importance to identity collective self-esteem.

Various dimensions of collective self-esteem have been associated with having an interpersonal relationship value orientation (Bettencourt & Dorr, 1997; Luhtanen & Crocker, 1992). Individuals who often value relatedness with others and who possess a strong identification with their social group may display more interdependent attitudes in relation to their group, which may produce beneficial outcomes for them in the face of adverse or difficult situations. For example, although Blacks in the United States generally may feel good about their own racial group (i.e., have high private collective self-esteem), external perceptions of their racial group may be negative or derogatory (Cooke, 2002; Postmes & Branscombe, 2002), resulting in lower perceived public collective self-esteem. However, despite the oftentimes negative perceptions of Blacks in this country by non-Blacks, a multitude of studies (e.g., Gray-Little & Hafdahl, 2000; Twenge & Crocker, 2002; Yang & Blodgett, 2000) have documented that Black Americans tend to have higher self-concepts in comparison to their non-Black counterparts.

Thus, for some social groups, private and public collective self-esteem may be virtually uncorrelated (e.g., Crocker et al., 1994). Components of collective self-esteem have been associated consistently with psychological well-being for more communal and collectivistic social groups such as many people of color (e.g., Constantine, Robinson, Wilton, & Caldwell, 2002; Crocker et al.; Zea, Riesen, & Poppen, 1999) and women (Corning, 2002). Most research studies to date that have examined collective self-esteem have focused on ascribed social groups such as race, ethnicity, and sex (e.g., Bettencourt & Dorr, 1997; Constantine et al.; Corning; Crocker et al.). In the current investigation, we focus on school counselors' social group identity, which is considered to be an achieved social group.

School counselors represent an important social group by virtue of their strong professional identification and their unique array of skills and roles within educational settings (Murray, 1995; Paisley & McMahon, 2001). Although the roles of school counselors are more clearly defined today than they were 20 years ago (Kendrick et al., 1994), expectations regarding their roles may vary greatly by institution and across educators (Schmidt, 1999) and have increased by virtue of the growing numbers of students in school settings across the country (Constantine et al., 2001). Role conflict and role ambiguity are two potential stressors that many school counselors experience with regard to their multiple job tasks. Role conflict occurs when two or more simultaneous and incompatible pressures exist in such a way that compliance with one role compromises fulfilling others (Drury, 1984; Thompson & Powers, 1983). Role ambiguity may occur when school counselors are unsure of the roles and functions that are professionally and institutionally expected (Moracco, Butcke, & McEwen, 1984). For example, school counselors who are assigned clerical duties, teacher substitution, or other non-counselor-related tasks might not feel that the external expectations of their educational settings are consistent with their own professional expectations or training (Schmidt). Such sources of role strain have been found to be negatively related to job satisfaction in school counselors (Thompson & Powers).

Other organizational stressors also may represent potential sources of burnout for school counselors. For example, teachers, principals, and administrative staff members may not possess favorable perceptions of the school counseling profession, and these perceptions may be evident in the assignment of non-counselor-related duties (Kendrick et al., 1994; Moracco et al., 1984; Parr, 1991). Furthermore, school counselors may not be visible in leadership roles in school settings, which can contribute to perceptions of diminished credibility and worth (Drury, 1984). In addition to perceptions that education professionals might not value school counselors or the services they provide, technological advances in counseling resources that are now available to students (e.g., Web-based vocational assessments or personality inventories) may make school counselors feel obsolete (Drury), particularly those who are not technologically proficient (Schmidt, 1999).

Considering the assortment of professional roles and organizational stressors to which school counselors may be exposed, the potential for burnout may be high. C. Maslach and her colleagues (e.g., Maslach, 1978; Maslach & Florian, 1988; Maslach & Jackson, 1981, 1984) conceptualized burnout as a multidimensional stress reaction comprised of three interrelated factors: emotional exhaustion (i.e., feeling drained of emotional energy); depersonalization (i.e., social withdrawal and the development of negative or apathetic views toward others); and reduced personal accomplishment (i.e., deteriorated sense of worth and dissatisfaction with prior successes). Burnout has been most strongly linked to human service professions, such as nursing, education, and mental health, which often entail intense emotional interactions with a number of individuals having a variety of concerns (Maslach & Jackson, 1981).

Although the literature on burnout has examined its relevance to educators and mental health professionals, few published studies have explored its importance to school counselors specifically. An investigation comparing self-reported burnout and role stress among school counselors, school psychologists, teachers, reading specialists, and school social workers reported that school counselors endorsed the highest role ambiguity and role conflict scores and the second highest emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment scores (Pierson-Hubeny & Archambault, 1987).

A potential factor in preventing or moderating burnout among school counselors may be social support (Jupp & Shaul, 1991). Haddad (1998) found that social support from family members and colleagues promoted a sense of personal accomplishment among a sample of school counselors in Jordan. The conceptual literature on stress prevention among school counselors has recommended strategies related to social support seeking, including networking with national, state, and local professional organizations; having in-house social support groups for school counselors; consulting with colleagues; and educating the school community about the roles and functions of school counselors (Moracco et al., 1984; Parr, 1991). In addition to potentially promoting a positive sense of professional and social identity in school counselors, these strategies may help to facilitate favorable perceptions of school counselors by other school personnel. The positive feelings that school counselors may have about being members of a unique professional group may be reflected in their perceptions of their collective group identity (i.e., collective self-esteem), which might be associated with lower perceived feelings of burnout.

PURPOSES OF THE STUDY

The primary purpose of our study was to explore the relationships between dimensions of collective self-esteem and components of burnout in a random sample of professional school counselors. A secondary purpose of this investigation was to determine whether there were potential differences among the respondents in dimensions of burnout by sex, geographic location of their work setting (i.e., urban, suburban, rural, or "other"), and the number of years employed as a school counselor (i.e., 0-9 years, 10-19 years, 20-29 years, or 30 or more years). In light of these research purposes, we identified the following hypotheses for this investigation:

1. Dimensions of collective self-esteem (i.e., private, public, membership, and importance to identity) will be significantly and negatively predictive of emotional exhaustion and feelings of depersonalization in school counselors.

2. Dimensions of collective self-esteem (i.e., private, public, membership, and importance to identity) will be significantly and positively predictive of personal accomplishment in school counselors.

3. Because we were unsure about the role of demographic variables in relation to aspects of burnout in our sample, we hypothesized that there would be no significant differences in emotional exhaustion, feelings of depersonalization, and feelings of personal accomplishment among school counselors by sex, geographic location of work setting, and number of years employed as a school counselor.

METHOD

Potential participants were 1,000 practicing school counselors who were randomly selected from a mailing list of members of the American School Counselor Association. These individuals were asked to participate in an anonymous study examining their perceptions about their professional identity and experiences. Interested participants completed a questionnaire packet consisting of the Collective Self-Esteem Scale (Luhtanen & Crocker, 1992), the Maslach Burnout Inventory--Educators Survey (Maslach & Jackson, 1986), and a brief demographic questionnaire. No incentives were used to solicit participation in the study, and participants were told that they would be provided with the study's results upon request. A total of 538 school counselors chose to participate in the study (54% response rate), but 5 of these participants were excluded from data analyses because of insufficient or missing data.

The resultant 415 (77.9%) women and 118 (22.1%) men who were included in the study ranged in age from 25 to 66 years (M = 42.59, SD = 8.12). By racial or ethnic background, 410 (76.9%) of the participants were White American, 52 (9.8%) were Black American, 31 (5.8%) were Asian or Asian American, 23 (4.3%) were Latino, 6 (1.1%) were American Indian, 7 (1.3%) were biracial, and 4 (.8%) identified as "other." In terms of educational background, 456 (85.6%) held master's degrees, 47 (8.8%) of the counselors had bachelor's degrees, 26 (4.9%) held doctoral degrees, and 4 (.8%) held "other" degrees (e.g., educational specialist). By location of school environment, 266 (49.9%) of the counselors were employed in urban schools, 156 (29.3%) were in suburban schools, 72 (13.5%) were in rural schools, and 39 (7.3%) were in "other" schools. In terms of number of years as a counselor, 119 respondents (22.3%) reported 0-9 years, 218 participants (40.9%) reported 10-19 years, 177 respondents (33.2%) reported 20-29 years, and 19 participants (3.6%) reported 30 years or more.

Instruments

Demographic questionnaire. Respondents were asked to indicate their sex, age, race or ethnicity, educational background, years of experience as a school counselor (i.e., 0-9 years, 10-19 years, 20-29 years, or 30 or more years), and geographic location of employment setting (i.e., urban, suburban, rural, or "other").

Collective Self-Esteem Scale (CSES). The CSES (Luhtanen & Crocker, 1992) is a 16-item, 7-point (1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree) Likert-type scale designed to assess self-esteem as it relates to belonging to a specific social group. The CSES consists of four subscales measuring four dimensions of collective self-esteem. The first subscale, private collective self-esteem, measures the degree to which individuals feel positively about their social group. Public collective self-esteem, the second subscale, assesses individuals' beliefs about the extent to which others feel positively about their social group. The third subscale, membership collective self-esteem, measures the degree to which individuals think that they are good members of their social group. Finally, the importance to identity collective self-esteem subscale assesses the extent to which individuals believe that their social group is an important part of their self-concept. Higher scores are associated with higher levels of collective self-esteem in each domain.

In validation studies, Luhtanen and Crocker (1992) reported adequate internal consistency reliabilities ranging from .71 to .88 for the CSES subscales, and a test-retest reliability coefficient of .68 for the total scale. Construct validation studies regarding the CSES have revealed a four-factor structure through both exploratory and confirmatory factor analytical techniques (Luhtanen & Crocker). In addition, CSES scores have been related to various measures of personal self-esteem and psychological well-being (e.g., Bettencourt, Charlton, Eubanks, Kernahan, & Fuller, 1999; Crocker et al., 1994). In the present study, CSES items were revised to refer specifically to respondents' social group membership as a school counselor. This type of modification has been used successfully by previous researchers (e.g., Constantine et al., 2002; Crocker et al.; Verkuyten & Lay, 1998). In our study, Cronbach's alphas of .79, .77, .76, and .63 were obtained for the private, public, membership, and importance to identity collective self-esteem subscales, respectively.

Maslach Burnout Inventory-Educators Survey (MBI-ES). The MBI-ES (Maslach & Jackson, 1986) is a 22-item, 6-point (0 = never, 6 = every day) Likert-type measure of school counselors' attitudes and feelings toward their job. It consists of three subscales that assess identified components of burnout: emotional exhaustion (i.e., feelings of fatigue that result from one's emotional energies being drained); depersonalization (i.e., developing negative and unfeeling attitudes toward others); and personal accomplishment (i.e., feelings of self-competence and satisfaction with achievements). High scores on the emotional exhaustion and depersonalization subscales indicate high degrees of burnout, whereas a high score on the personal accomplishment subscale is associated with a low degree of burnout.

For the emotional exhaustion subscale, low scores range from 0 to 17, moderate scores range from 18 to 29, and high scores are 30 and over. On the depersonalization subscale, low scores range from 0 to 5, moderate scores range from 6 to 11, and high scores are 12 and over. On the personal accomplishment subscale, high scores range from 0 to 33, moderate scores range from 34 to 39, and low scores are 40 and over. (Because this scale is reverse-scored, higher feelings of personal accomplishment are associated with lower levels of burnout.) In previous studies, the MBI-ES subscales have had reliability coefficients ranging from .76 to .90, and sufficient validity support for the MBI-ES has been reported (e.g., Maslach & Jackson, 1986). In our investigation, Cronbach's alphas of .82, .82, and .86 were calculated for the emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and personal accomplishment subscales, respectively.

RESULTS

The means, standard deviations, and intercorrelations of the study's variables are reported in Table 1. To test the first two hypotheses of this study, we conducted a multivariate multiple regression analysis that examined the relationships between four components of collective self-esteem (i.e., private, public, membership, and importance to identity) and three dimensions of burnout (i.e., emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and personal accomplishment). In our investigation, the predictor variables were the four CSES subscales and the criterion variables were the three subscales of the MBI-ES. Results of this analysis revealed that the overall proportion of the variance in the MBI-ES subscales accounted for by the four CSES subscales was significant--Pillai's trace = .08, F (12, 1584) = 3.48, p < .001, [[eta].sup.2.sub.m] = .03, where [[eta].sup.2.sub.m] is the multivariate effect size.

Because multivariate significance was reached at the .05 level, follow-up univariate analyses were conducted. Results of follow-up univariate analyses to determine the unique relationships between the predictor and criterion variables revealed that higher private collective self-esteem was associated with greater feelings of personal accomplishment, F(1, 528) = 9.61, p < .01, [[eta].sub.2] = .02. In addition, higher public collective self-esteem was related to lower emotional exhaustion, F(1,528) = 6.69, p < .05, [[eta].sub.2] = .01, and higher feelings of personal accomplishment, F(1, 528) = 6.04, p < .05, [[eta].sub.2] = .01. Furthermore, higher importance to identity collective self-esteem was related to lower feelings of depersonalization, F(1, 528) = 4.68, p < .05, [[eta].sub.2] = .01, and higher feelings of personal accomplishment, F(1, 528) = 6.45, p < .05, [[eta].sub.2] = .01. It is important to note that because each of the predictor variables accounted for very little variance in the criterion variables, much of the variance in burnout is left unexplained by dimensions of collective self-esteem.

To address the third hypothesis of this investigation, we conducted three multivariate analyses of variance (MANOVAs) to determine whether there were significant differences with regard to the dimensions of burnout by sex, geographic location of work setting, and number of years employed as a school counselor. In the first analysis, which explored potential sex differences in components of burnout, no significant differences between women and men were found--Pillai's trace = .01, F(3, 529) = 2.38, p > .05. In the second analysis, which examined differences in dimensions of burnout by geographic location of work setting, the overall MANOVA was significant--Pillai's trace = .18, F(9, 1587) = 10.90, p < .001.

Because of unequal cell sizes across location of work settings, we analyzed post-hoe differences using Dunnett's C tests. Results of these follow-up analyses revealed that school counselors employed in urban environments reported significantly higher emotional exhaustion scores (M = 20.77, SD = 6.30) than did their peers employed in suburban (M = 16.08, SD = 7.61), rural (M = 14.40, SD = 7.60), and other environmental settings (M = 16.23, SD = 8.15) [F(3, 529) = 24.66, p < .001]. Furthermore, school counselors working in urban settings endorsed significantly higher feelings of depersonalization (M = 11.29, SD = 3.04) than did school counselors in suburban (M = 9.21, SD = 4.25), rural (M = 9.44, SD = 4.07), and other (M = 9.20, SD = 4.06) environments [F(3,529) = 13.67, p < .001].

In the third MANOVA, which examined potential differences in components of burnout by number of years employed as a school counselor, the overall omnibus equation was significant--Pillai's trace = .03, F(9, 1587) = 2.10, p < .05. Because of unequal cell sizes across years of school counseling experience, we examined post-hoc differences using Dunnett's C tests. Results of these post-hoe analyses indicated that school counselors with 20-29 years of experience endorsed significantly higher feelings of depersonalization (M = 10.75, SD = 3.52) than did their peers who reported 0-9 years of experience (M = 9.49, SD = 4.19) [F(3,529) = 3.38, p < .05]. Furthermore, school counselors working 30 years or more reported significantly lower feelings of personal accomplishment (M = 20.68, SD = 8.20) than did their counterparts who had been counseling 0-9 years (M = 26.92, SD = 8.69) and 10-19 years (M = 26.37, SD = 7.85) [F(3, 529) = 3.39, p < .05].

DISCUSSION

We investigated the relationships between four dimensions of collective self-esteem (i.e., private, public, membership, and importance to identity) and three components of burnout (i.e., emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and feelings of personal accomplishment) in a large sample of professional school counselors. The school counselors in our study came from a variety of geographical environments and reported a wide range of years employed in their profession. Prior to discussing the findings, it is important to note that the mean scores of two of the MBI-ES subscales (i.e., emotional exhaustion and depersonalization) fell in the moderate range (see Table 1), suggesting that many members of our sample are experiencing some symptoms of burnout. However, the scores for the personal accomplishment subscale fell in the high range. Taken together, these findings indicate a complex picture of school counselors who, despite some symptoms of burnout, experience a positive sense of professional pride and accomplishment in the workplace. Because school counselors are in the unique position of caring for many students' psychosocial needs while simultaneously attempting to strike a healthy balance in their own lives, it seems vital that ongoing self-monitoring and other monitoring of school counselors' responsibilities be instituted to avoid burnout experiences.

Regarding our multivariate multiple regression results, we found several significant, but very small, statistical effects regarding the relationship between components of collective self-esteem and burnout. This phenomenon leaves much of the variance in burnout unexplained by dimensions of collective self-esteem. Nonetheless, we found that higher private collective self-esteem was associated with higher feelings of personal accomplishment. This finding suggests that school counselors' internal positive perceptions of their social group could contribute to feelings of professional accomplishment in their work environments.

In addition, results indicated that school counselors with higher public collective self-esteem reported lower levels of emotional exhaustion and higher feelings of personal accomplishment. Hence, the extent to which school counselors believe that others positively perceive their social group might help them from becoming emotionally drained and experiencing deteriorated self-competence and dissatisfaction. We also found that higher importance to identity collective self-esteem was related to lower feelings of depersonalization and higher feelings of personal accomplishment. It appears that school counselors' views of their social group membership might represent vital parts of how they perceive themselves both professionally and personally. As stated earlier, however, it is important to underscore that dimensions of collective self-esteem contributed only a minor amount of the variance to dimensions of burnout, as indicated by our minimal effect sizes.

Findings also revealed that school counselors working in urban school settings reported significantly higher levels of emotional exhaustion and feelings of depersonalization than did their counterparts in suburban, rural, and other settings. School counselors employed in urban environments often are exposed to unique issues that may not be found as readily in other school settings. For example, the growing cultural diversity of school systems in large cities has mandated that school counselors become increasingly proficient in addressing the complex needs of students who may be racially or ethnically different from themselves, and who may have varied expectations about how school counselors can best meet their psychosocial issues (Constantine et al., 2001).

Furthermore, urban children and youth, who often live in environments in which overcrowding, poverty, and crime arc high, have been found to encounter greater levels of stress in their milieus and to present with more severe mental health problems than do suburban or rural youth (Weist et al., 2000). As a result, it is possible that some urban school counselors may be feeling stressed about the distinct challenges that arc present in their school settings (Clemente & Collison, 2000; Hunter-Boykin, Thompson, Evans, & Brown, 1993), and such stress ultimately could result in burnout if not addressed sufficiently. Hence, it seems critical that urban school counselors obtain adequate levels of professional and personal support in order to guard against extreme feelings of stress and burnout.

Our results also indicated that school counselors who had been counseling for 30 or more years reported lower feelings of personal accomplishment than did their peers who had been counseling for 0-9 years and 10-19 years. Moreover, we found that school counselors with 20-29 years of experience reported higher feelings of depersonalization than did their counterparts with 0-9 years of experience. The aforementioned findings are consistent with Jupp and Shaul's (1991) study, which reported that school counselors with longer employment histories tended to express higher levels of burnout than did their counterparts who were employed for shorter periods of time. However, these researchers also found that school counselors employed for longer periods of time often perceived more support from their counseling peers, and this form of support was associated with diminished burnout. Thus, collective professional and social support from other school counselors, along with social support by school teachers and administrators, might be especially helpful to more experienced school counselors in reducing feelings of burnout. In addition, receiving peer supervision or consultation regarding professional issues within a group format may provide these counselors with support and validation for their work within school systems.

Limitations

There are several potential limitations of our investigation. First, generalizability of the findings is cautioned because the participants may differ from school counselors who did not respond to the study. Second, our sample was predominantly White and female. Although school counselors in the United States are predominantly White, it may be important for future researchers to assess similar variables in school counselors who represent a wider range of racial and ethnic backgrounds. Another potential limitation of our study is that a very small amount of the variance in burnout was accounted for by dimensions of collective self-esteem, leaving much of the variance in burnout still unexplained in this study. With regard to our investigation, it also is possible that some participants were cued to the research intent. That is, they may have responded differently to some or all of the study's instruments based on their presumed knowledge about what was being assessed or in ways that did not reflect their actual attitudes and beliefs.

Implications for Training

Considering potential contributing factors to burnout in practicing school counselors, it is possible that current academic training methods may not sufficiently prepare trainees for the challenges that await them in the school setting. Many school counselor training programs are located within mental health counselor training programs that may offer only one or two courses pertaining specifically to school counseling. In fact, a recent study (i.e., Perusse, Goodnough, & Noel, 2001a) indicated that only about 30% of sampled school counselor programs required trainees to take a course in school counseling. Furthermore, textbooks used in some school counselor programs may not adequately address the stressors that school counselors encounter in the real world. Ironically, these textbooks might promote idealistic views among trainees that ultimately could contribute to professional burnout because of these students' lack of preparedness to deal with the numerous and sometimes competing roles they might play in school settings (Schmidt, 1999).

School counselor training programs should expose their trainees to up-to-date and context-specific counseling skills, such as group, family, substance abuse, and crisis counseling, with regard to working with students who have mental health problems of increasing severity (Barker & Satcher, 2000; Kendrick et al., 1994). This issue might be particularly salient to the experiences of school counselors who plan to work in urban settings, in light of the levels of burnout they seem to experience relative to school counselors employed in suburban, rural, and "other" settings. Furthermore, school counselor trainees who develop competence in facilitating small and large groups might be able to attend more efficiently to large student caseloads in school settings (Drury, 1984; Schmidt, 1999), which could reduce their overall work stress. Academic training programs also might actively encourage school counselor trainees to develop networking skills, such as lobbying, grant writing, and outreach to state, local, and national organizations, as ways to increase their professional visibility and credibility and to develop peer groups with whom positive and negative experiences as school counselors might be shared.

Conclusions

In recent decades, student enrollments across school systems in the United States have grown tremendously and budgetary limitations have constrained the hiring of additional school counselors; these phenomena have resulted in greater student-to-counselor ratios and increased work-role demands of school counselors (Freeman & Coll, 1997). Moreover, as school enrollments and work expectations have increased, the "face" of the school population in the United States has become more culturally diverse, and school counselors have been challenged to become better prepared to work with students representing diverse cultural backgrounds (Constantine et al., 2001). Some school counselors may feel ill-prepared to work within the context of the changing expectations and demographics of their school systems, which could contribute to work-related stress and feelings of burnout (Kendrick et al., 1994).

Thus, in order to reduce the possibility of burnout, practicing school counselors might benefit from engaging in professional development activities, such as taking continuing education courses and attending workshops related to needed areas of competence, to increase feelings of work-related efficacy in their settings. Furthermore, participating in professional support groups might assist some school counselors in augmenting their collective group identity, fostering perceived social support, and decreasing or managing symptoms of burnout related to their multiple roles and expectations.

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S. Kent Butler is an assistant professor in the Division of Counseling and Family Therapy at the University of Missouri--St. Louis. E-mail: [e-mail]

Madonna G. Constantine is a professor in the Department of Counseling and Clinical Psychology at Teachers College, Columbia University, New York.

Table 1. Means, Standard Deviations, and Intercorrelations of the
Study's Variables

         Variables              M      SD       2        3

1. CSES private subscale       5.37    1.06   .62 **   .59 **

2. CSES public subscale        5.18     .98    --      .58 **

3. CSES membership subscale    5.07    1.09            --

4. CSES importance             4.87     .96
   to identity subscale

5. MBI-ES emotional           18.21    7.47
   exhaustion subscale

6. MBI-ES depersonalization   10.28    3.78
   subscale

7. MBI-ES personal
   accomplishment subscale    26.04    8.32

         Variables              4         5        6        7

1. CSES private subscale      .54 **   -.14 **   -.01     -.02

2. CSES public subscale       .48 **   -.19 **   -.06      .10 *

3. CSES membership subscale   .54 **   -.13 **   -.02      .05

4. CSES importance             --      -.14 **   -.09 *    .11 *
   to identity subscale

5. MBI-ES emotional                     --       .43 **   -.57 **
   exhaustion subscale

6. MBI-ES depersonalization                        --     -.50 **
   subscale

7. MBI-ES personal                                          --
   accomplishment subscale

Note. CSES = Collective Self-Esteem Scale (Luhtanen & Crocker,
1992); MBI-ES = Maslach Burnout Inventory-Educators Survey
(Maslach & Jackson, 1986). The means for the CSES correspond to the
Likert-type scale. Higher scores on each subscale correspond to
greater amounts of the given variable.

* p < .05. ** p < .01.